Thousands of Jaish A-Islam militants, families arrive in N. Syria - SOHR

AMMAN, April 10 (KUNA) -- More than 3,000 Jaish al-Islam militants and their family members arrived in areas in northern Syria, which are under control of the "Operation Euphrates Shield", the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Tuesday.
The militants and their families have been evacuated from Douma in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta.
SOHR added that 67 buses arrived in the areas controlled by the Syrian opposition in norther Aleppo, noting that the forces of the "Euphrates Shield" confiscated individual weapons of Jaish Islam fighters.
The Russian reconciliation center, which held negotiations with the Syrian opposition factions in Eastern Ghouta on evacuating these militants, announced in a statement that about 3,600 of gunmen and their families left Douma over the past 24 hours, SOHR noted.
Jaish Al-Islam, which was controlling the city, released tens of hostages as part of Russia-brokered deal, but there are thousands others who have not been released so far, according to their families.
The deal came into effect last Sunday some hours after Jaish Al-Islam and civil defense had accused the Syrian regime of launching a chemical attack on Douma that killed tens of people and wounded about 1,000 others with suffocation.
Thousands of fighters of Ahrar Al-Sham, Faylaq Al-Rahman and Al-Nusra Front as well as Jaish Al-Islam, in addition to tens of thousands of civilians, left a number of towns and cities towards northwest Syria.
In a related context, there is growing resentment of families whose members were kept hostages by Jaish Al-Islam in 2013, according to the observatory.
SOHR said those families complained that only 200 hostages were released by Jaish Al-Islam, enquiring about the destiny of the remaining hostages, totaling more than 3,000, who were held by Jaish Al-Islam militants.
Quoting sources close to these families, the observatory said they accused the Syrian regime of neglecting their relatives' destiny to speed up the completion of the evacuation of Jaish Al-Islam fighters and their families as well as civilians who reject the agreement between Jaish Al-Islam on one hand, and the Russian side and representatives of the regime on the other. (end) tk.hm